Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-12-31

- ON''N
own neglects-magniticent machinery
capable Of propeliing a Great Eeastern
across the Atlantic, yet fastened IN a
rickety North River propeller.
MARTIN LUTHER
was SO mighty FIR Gcd, first, because
he had a muscular deyelopement which
would have enabled him 10 thrash any
five Of his prosecutors, If it had been
Christian 50 to do. Physical develop
ment which merely shows itself in
fabulous lifting, or in perilous rope
walking, or in pugulistic encounter,
excites only u contempt; but we con-
TESS to great admiration for the man
who has n great soul in en- athletic
body, every nerve, muscle, and bone OF
which is consecrated to right uses. Oh,
it seems to me outrageous that men,
through neglect, should allow their
physical health 10 60 down beyond
repair. A ship which ought, with all
sail set and every man at his post, to
be carrying q rich cargo for eternity,
employing Ill its men in stopping up
leakages! When You may, through
the gymnasium, work Oft your spleen
and your qu~erulousness and onc-half of
your physical and mental ailments, do
not turn your back upon such q grand
medicament.
PARLoR CANES.
Still further: / commend to YOU p
large class of parlor games and recre-
atoms. There is a way Of making our
homes a h~undredfold more attractive
than they are now. Those parents
cannot expect to keep their children
away from outside designations unless
they make the domestic cir
Gle brighter than anything they can
find outside Of it. Do not, then, sit in
your home surly and unsy m~pathetic,
aud with a halt-condempatory look, be-
cause OF the sportfulness of your chill
dren. You were young once yourself;
let your children be young. Because
your eyes are dim and your ankles are
stiff, do not denounce sportfulness in
those upon whose eyes there is the first
lustre, and in whose feet there is the
bounding JOY of robust health. thank
God that in Cur drawing rooms and in
our parlors there are innumerable
games and sports which have not upon
them the least faint of indignity. Light
up all your homes with innocent hllari-
ties. Do not sit down with the rheu-
matism, wondering how children can
60 On so. Rather thank God that their
hearts are so light, and their laughter
is SO free, and that their cheeks are so
ruddy, and that their expectations are
so radiant.
NIGHT
will come soon enough, and the heart
break, and the pang, and the desola-
tion-it will come soon enough for the
dear children. But when the storm
actually clouds the sky it will be time
enough for you to haul out your reef
tackles. Garry, then, into your homes
not only the innocent sports ard games
which are the inventions of our own
day, but the games which come down
with the sportfulness Of all the past
ages--chcss and charades and tableaux
and battledore and calisthenics and
lawn tennis, and all those amusemonts
which the young people of our homes
know SO well how to coDtrive. Then
there will be the parlor socialities--
groups of people assembled in your
homes, with wit and mimicry and jo-
Vitality, filing the room with JOY from
the door to the mantel, and from the
carpet to the ceiling. Oh, is there any
exhilaration like a score of genial souls
in one room, each one adding a con
tribution of his own individual merri-
ment to the aggregation of general
hilarltyP
ADJUSTMENTS IN ii CITY.
Suppose you want TO go abroad in
the city, then you will find the piano.
rama and the art gallery and exquisite
collections Of pictures. You will find
the Metropolitan Museum and the His
tor cal Society rooms full of rare Curl
o~sities, and scores Of places which can
stand plainly the test OF what is right
and wrong in amusements. You will
lind the lecturing hall, which has been
honored by the names Of Agassiz in
natural history, Doremus in chemistry,
Boynton in geology, Mitchell in astron-
omy, John b. Cough in moral reform,
and scores and hundreds of men who
have poured their wit and genius and
ingenuity through that particular chan
mel upon the hearts and consciences
and imaginations of men. setting this
country fifty years farther in advance
than it would have been without the
lecture platform.
1 rejoice in the popularization Of out
door sports. l hail the croquet ground
and the fisherman's rod and the sports
mans gun. In our cities life is so un-
healthy and unnatural that when the
census-taker represents n city as hav-
ing four hundred thousand inhabitants,
there are only two hundred thousand,
since it takes at least two men to
amount to man, 80 depicting and
unnerving and exhausting is this
metropolitan life. We want more fresh
air, more sunlight, more Of the aban-
don of t~ield-sports. / cry out for it in
behalf of the
CHURCH or GOD,
a well as in behalf OF secular interests.
l wish that this winter our ponds and
our rivers and our capitoline grounds
might be all aquake with the heel and